Foldable portable telephones include a main body case and a lid case which are foldable into a compact form for carrying and which are opened for making or receiving a call to expose a manual key arrangement and a speech delivery portion provided on an inner surface of the main body case and to expose a display screen and a speech receiving portion provided on the inner surface of the lid case, so that the user can speak with a calling party.
Such foldable portable telephones are not only convenient to carry but also free of the likelihood that some keys will be inadvertently depressed when the telephone is carried as placed in a bag or the like since the manual keys are then covered with the lid case, hence security.
However, the conventional portable telephones have a manual key for turning on/off a power source of a device body provided on an inner surface of a main body case, so that when the user is to turn off the power source of the device body, for example, before attending a meeting in order to avoid receiving a call during the meeting, the user needs to open the lid case to manipulate the manual key, and then still needs to close the lid case, entailing the problem of cumbersomeness in open-close manipulation of the lid case.